BeforeItsNews only exists through ads. We ask all patriots who appreciate the evil we expose and want to
help us savage the NWO with more Truth to disable your ad-blocker on our site only so we can grow and expose more evil! Funding
gives us more weapons! Thank you patriots! Oh and If you disable the Ad-blocker - on your deathbed you will receive total
consciousness. So you got that going for you...which is nice!
Extraterrestrial First Contact: Listening to Each Other
Tuesday, July 14, 2020 10:09
% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.
http://www.firstcontact29.blogspot.com/
There would be plenty of ideas and opinions if an alien First Contact event does occur someday. Humans would argue about how we should respond and how we should move forward. Debate can be a good thing if it brings important issues to the forefront of discussion, but would we actually listen to each other? I’ve discussed polarization previously in this blog. In this context, it’s the movement of political opinion groups to opposite sides of a spectrum, setting up vehement disagreements and conflict. One could argue that First Contact would not be a political event, but rather a scientific development. It may start that way, but if there is high information communication occurring, or likely to occur, between humans and extraterrestrials, politics would quickly come into play. There would be much at stake. Governments, institutions and corporations would all be interested in a piece of the alien information pie. Issues of international relations, human leadership, and human response would put governments, and the United Nations, on the front lines of First Contact debate. It would be a political problem because governments are fueled by politics, especially in democracies. And political polarization quickly leads to social polarization, a much more entrenched problem, as it can divide people at even the most personal level. The polarization of American politics is an oft-discussed topic, however, it does seem to be a global phenomenon. There are current examples of political polarization in Britain, France and Turkey, to name just a few. The United Nations issued a report last year citing some of the reasons for polarization as including income inequality, economic problems, the competition for resources, and environmental challenges.
Polarization is harmful when it creates gridlock and inaction. The big question in the wake of First Contact would be how to avoid polarization in order to build consensus and get things done. I think that active listening and well-considered messaging will be important. Listening sounds like an obvious solution to polarization. If we listen to other viewpoints, and consider those ideas, we are more likely to broaden our perspective. However, if all of the messaging is inflamed and politically charged, listening will be difficult.
Active listening and well-considered messaging are not new ideas. They are common interpersonal communication techniques. Here is what the US State Department suggests for active listening:
1. Seek to understand before you seek to be understood. 2. Be non-judgmental 3. Give your undivided attention to the speaker 4. Use silence effectively
Well-considered messaging is achieved when the sender takes into account the audience, employs empathy to understand that audience, and crafts the message using words and phrases that engage the audience. Simply put: avoid the rhetoric and get to the heart of what people care about.
We would hope that our leaders would employ active listening and well-considered messaging on a regular basis. However, we know that is not the case. Leaders sometimes make a conscious effort to avoid active listening and well-considered messaging. The reason: they seek to control people by creating wedges between groups. Nasty rhetoric is a way to fire-up your base and create a delineation with your opponents. There will be plenty of people using inflamed rhetoric in the wake of First Contact. They will be seeking power and advantage by dividing the public along lines that favor their interests. The media and the public will need to be on the watch for such behavior and call it out when it happens.
The political and social climate in many nations is currently quite negative. Such thinking could easily turn the debate over First Contact response into a vociferous free for all. If First Contact does occur someday, we will all need to work hard to keep the discourse positive and actions productive.
